Making sense of Israel, Palestine, and Hamas

Reading suggestions for a deeper cultural understanding

Oct 16, 2023

For Jews around the world, the attack on Israel is not just an unwelcome battle, but one that stirs up previous traumas of large scale antisemitism. Antisemitism didn’t start with the Nazi party and the Holocaust in the early part of the 20th century. Anti-Jewish violence dates back thousands of years to Catholics blaming Jews for the crucifixion of Christ and it persists to this day. Students of Judaism would be aware of this history, at least tangentially. A lay person may not know the depth of trauma this insidious and barbaric attack has stirred up for the Jewish community in the US. Hamas’s attack on Israel is a perpetuation of this evil pattern to kill—specifically—Jews. Here are recent examples from just the last five years in our own country:

2018 Mass shooting at Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 and injuring six, including Holocaust survivors.
2019 on the last day of Jewish Passover on Shabbat, a man entered Chabad of Poway (California) and killed one woman, and injuring three, including the rabbi.
2019 a pair of gunmen from extremist groups shot and killed four people, including a police detective and two other police officers in a kosher grocery store in Jersey City.
2019 on the last night of Chanukah a man armed with a large knife or machete entered the Rockland County (NY) home of a rabbi hosting a holiday party. Five men were injured, and the rabbi later died of his injuries.
2022 an extremist Pakistani entered a Colleyville, TX synagogue on the Sabbath and held four people hostage for 11 hours.
2023 a man shot two men leaving synagogue and later admitted he shot them for being Jewish.

This newsletter does not intend to provide a full history of Judaism or antisemitism, as I’m quite unqualified , but to provide resources to educate yourself. My suspicion is that many of us want to ignore the news. It’s too brutal, too disgusting. Maybe you you don’t have any Jewish friends, or if you do, you don’t realize how demoralizing this war is for them. If you’re not a student of Middle Eastern history and politics, then it’s easy to dismiss the inhumanity unfolding there because it is so complex.

If Hamas came into our cities and raped, dismembered, maimed, murdered and destroyed Americans’ lives and families, you can be sure the US would wipe Hamas off the map, right or wrong. It is rational, therefore, that Israel is responding in the same way, trying to warn innocent Palestinians to evacuate. The nuance, of course, is that the attack was perpetrated against the Israeli government that has openly discriminated the Palestinians, curtailing their rights, ability to travel, forcing them to live in poorer cities with less social services. The Palestinians and Israelis have been at war for decades, and while neither party is exempt from blame, Hamas’s depraved, and inhumane attack has no justification.

Admittedly, I have a minimum understanding of the historical context. My husband recommended a podcast called “Blowback,” which describes itself as “A podcast about the American Empire.” Indeed, it focuses on America’s involvement in major events around the world that few of us learned in school or even higher education. Listening to the episode, “Rosebud,” explains how the US got involved with Iraq and Iran’s conflicts over oil. This, and many other episodes, allows listeners to gain crucial understanding of the events that led up to well known historical events, like the assassination of Saddam Hussein, who was, at one point not an enemy of America. This podcast can get a little lefty-radical so if you’re interested, listen with a grain of salt.

More in line with my vibe, I’m borrowing a graphic from the Fairfield Public Library with recommended titles that will teach you about the cultures and intersections of the Palestinians and the Jews. Links to each title are below. If you purchase from my links, I may receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.

It is only with understanding and education that we can have compassion for the innocent victims of this horrifying war.

Making sense of Israel, Palestine, and Hamas

Reading suggestions for a deeper cultural understanding

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